Production — Orchestrator Recipe (no agent)

The orchestrator runs Production directly. Don’t delegate. Format conversion, validation, and metadata are mechanical — agent handoffs add risk, not value.

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AMBER / AMBER CANON (added 2026-06-13)

The KN-86 brand voice is “amber-on-black.” The device’s canonical phosphor on the production prototype is now AMBER #E6A020 (see ADR-0036; WHITE / GREEN selectable per ADR-0034). Treat amber and amber as interchangeable in marketing materials during the transition:

• Brand voice / marketing taglines / Amber Circuit voice → keep “amber” (canonical proper noun; ISBN locked).
• Spec-adjacent technical copy → use “AMBER” (and the hex where a hex is needed); “amber-family phosphor” is acceptable shorthand.
• Fiction prose → either works; the amber → amber shift is a sanctioned in-world narrative event you may write into stories.
• Sister-product KN-9x specs → amber-canonical.

For production: The Amber Circuit build directory, filenames, and title are locked. Do not rename build/amber-circuit/ or the KN86_AMBER_CIRCUIT-* cover assets. Back-cover copy and cover-art prompts continue to use “amber screen” as brand voice. If a new volume’s metadata.yaml description writes the device as “amber,” that’s also fine — both read as canonical brand voice during the transition.

See docs/marketing/narrative/CLAUDE.md for the full canon.

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Inputs

• .work/<run-id>/manuscript.md — the assembled, line-edited manuscript
• docs/marketing/narrative/synopses/<Title>-Synopsis.md — for back-cover copy
• An existing build directory you can mirror: docs/marketing/narrative/build/amber-circuit/ contains the canonical structure: body.md, metadata.yaml, style.css, cover.png, back-cover.png, <Title>.epub, <Title>.kpf

Outputs

docs/marketing/narrative/stories/<Title>-v_next.md       (the canonical text — overwrite v3 only after Josh approves)
docs/marketing/narrative/build/<title-slug>/
  body.md                     (manuscript copy used for build)
  metadata.yaml               (title, author, date, ISBN-placeholder, language, rights)
  style.css                   (epub stylesheet — copy from amber-circuit and tweak)
  cover.png                   (front cover — see Cover artwork below)
  back-cover.png              (back cover — see Cover artwork below)
  <Title>.epub                (validated with epubcheck)
  <Title>.kpf                 (Kindle-ready package, built externally in Kindle Previewer)
docs/marketing/narrative/changelogs/<Title>-rev<N>-changelog.md

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Steps

1. Promote the manuscript

cp .work/<run-id>/manuscript.md docs/marketing/narrative/stories/<Title>-v_next-draft1.md

If Josh signs off on the draft, promote again:

cp docs/marketing/narrative/stories/<Title>-v_next-draft1.md docs/marketing/narrative/stories/<Title>-v_next.md

Do NOT overwrite the existing v3 (or current canonical version) until Josh explicitly approves. Old versions stay around for reference and rollback.

2. Build directory setup

mkdir -p docs/marketing/narrative/build/<title-slug>
cp .work/<run-id>/manuscript.md docs/marketing/narrative/build/<title-slug>/body.md
cp docs/marketing/narrative/build/amber-circuit/style.css docs/marketing/narrative/build/<title-slug>/

Tweak style.css only if the volume’s voice DNA calls for typographic differences (e.g., Variance Analysis might want a slightly different chapter-break rule given its institutional register). For most volumes, copy verbatim.

3. metadata.yaml

Author from scratch per volume. Reference the Amber Circuit version for shape:

title: "[TITLE]"
subtitle: "A KN-86 Deckline Novelette"
author: "[AUTHOR — typically a pseudonym in the Kinoshita imprint, e.g. 'a. m. ardent']"
date: "[YYYY-MM-DD]"
language: "en-US"
publisher: "Great Western Productions, San Antonio, TX"
description: |
  [Back-cover copy — 100–200 words. The marketing curiosity hook lives here. Surface 2–3
   capability cartridges by name; do not list all of them. Tease the device — amber screen,
   OLED CIPHER strip, mission board listening to AetherNet — without explaining it. The
   reader should close the book and want to know more.]
rights: "© [YEAR] Great Western Productions. All rights reserved."
identifier:
  scheme: "ISBN"
  value: "[placeholder — ISBN-13 or empty for KDP]"
cover-image: cover.png

Use the marketing-strategist skill to draft the description if you want a fresh pair of hands on the back-cover copy. The marketing obligation says the description must plant curiosity about the device, not summarize the plot.

4. Cover artwork

The Amber Circuit covers were generated as KN86_AMBER_CIRCUIT-1-COVER.png and similar. Generate volume-specific covers via the user’s existing artwork pipeline (out of scope for this skill — ask Josh which generator/style to use). The cover should:

• Feature the KN-86 device prominently (amber screen, Pelican case form factor)
• Use a typeface that reads as period-correct cyberpunk (Press Start 2P + a serif companion is the established cycle convention)
• Render the title and “A KN-86 Deckline Novelette” subtitle clearly
• Include a back cover with the YAML description, an author bio block (1–2 sentences in the Kinoshita imprint voice), and the “Great Western Productions, San Antonio, TX” imprint stamp

Place at build/<title-slug>/cover.png and back-cover.png.

5. EPUB build

Use the markdown-to-kindle-epub skill. Single-file manuscript pipeline, with body.md as the source. The skill handles:

• Preprocessing (chapter splitting on ## Chapter N markers)
• EPUB3 generation with the bundled style.css
• Smart-quote / em-dash normalization
• TTS-friendly markup (no stray <br/> inside <p>, no <strong> that TTS may announce)
• Cover image binding from metadata.yaml’s cover-image field

Validate with epubcheck:

epubcheck docs/marketing/narrative/build/<title-slug>/<Title>.epub

Address every error before proceeding. Warnings are usually acceptable but read them.

6. KPF build (Kindle Previewer — manual step)

Open <Title>.epub in Kindle Previewer.app on macOS. Export as .kpf. Place at build/<title-slug>/<Title>.kpf.

This step is manual. Don’t try to script it. Note the build date in the changelog.

7. Changelog

Write docs/marketing/narrative/changelogs/<Title>-rev<N>-changelog.md (or <Title>-final-changelog.md if Josh approves this draft as the new final). Reference the canonical format from existing changelogs in that directory — they have a structured shape with sections for canon deltas applied, cross-cycle alignments, marketing deltas closed, and verification notes.

Minimum sections:

# [TITLE] [rev<N> | final] Changelog

**Status:** [READY TO PUBLISH | DRAFT FOR REVIEW]
**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**From:** [previous version filename] → [new version filename]
**Run ID:** [run-id from .work/]

---

## Canon Deltas Applied
[bullet list with chapter:paragraph references — what shifted and why]

## Cross-Cycle Alignments
[bullet list — anchors preserved or newly introduced]

## Marketing Deltas Closed
[bullet list — capability cartridges that moved from name-drop to in-action;
 runtime features newly surfaced]

## Verification
[Cross-cycle anchor phrase searches:
  - "autonomous output generation": present at line N (chapter X)
  - "welcome back, operator": present at line M (chapter Y) — formant-event scene
  - canonical shell-company name spellings: verified
 Hardware spec mentions: verified against CLAUDE.md Canonical Hardware Specification
 CIPHER voice rendering: verified OLED-LINE only (Null exception logged at line K)]

## Editor / Copyeditor Notes
[per-chapter bullets from editor-memo.md, condensed to the production-relevant subset]

8. Marketing curiosity-hook validation

Before announcing “READY TO PUBLISH” in the changelog, run a final check using the marketing-strategist skill or copywriting skill:

• Read the back-cover description
• Read the opening paragraph of chapter 1
• Read the closing paragraph of the final chapter

Question: would a reader who has never heard of the KN-86 close this book wanting to know more about the device? Specifically — would they want to know what cartridges exist that this book didn’t show?

If yes, ship. If no, send the back cover and the opening/closing pages back to the Editor with a SendMessage asking for a curiosity-hook polish.

9. Commit + branch

Use the git-flow skill conventions:

• Branch: narrative/<title-slug>-rev<N> (or however the project’s git-flow conventions are set; check .claude/skills/git-flow/SKILL.md if the project has one)
• Commit the new manuscript, the changelog, and the build artifacts in separate logical commits
• Push and open a draft PR; Josh reviews

Do NOT push the build artifacts (.epub, .kpf, large cover .png files) without checking repo size policy. The Amber Circuit build is committed; follow the same convention. If the repo has Git LFS configured for media, use it.

10. Notion task closure

Close the Notion task that originated this run. Use the task-management skill:

• Set status to Review (Josh closes to Done)
• Link the PR
• Link the changelog
• Link the EPUB if relevant

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Production failure modes

Symptom	Fix
epubcheck errors on chapter splitting	Inspect body.md chapter markers; the markdown-to-kindle-epub skill expects ## Chapter N: Title headers exactly
Cover doesn’t bind in EPUB	Verify metadata.yaml’s cover-image: cover.png matches the actual filename and case
TTS pauses inside paragraphs (audiobook listener reports)	Find <br/> tags inside <p> blocks in the EPUB — preprocess to remove
Smart quotes inconsistent (some straight, some smart)	Run a normalization pass on body.md before building
Kindle Previewer rejects the EPUB	Usually a CSS issue — strip non-Kindle-supported properties from style.css
Changelog cites a verification phrase that grep can’t find	The Editor or Copyeditor lost the anchor — restore from the previous version, re-edit around it